Conflict

Medical Centre In Nineveh Treats Those Handicapped By War

The Disability Rehabilitation Centre in Nineveh receives between 60-80 patients a day and it offers specialised medical services to disabled people in three stages.

The past few years of conflict in Iraq has resulted in thousands of people being inflicted with injuries that in many cases have been debilitating. The health sector in Iraq has been struggling due to a lack of financing and proper administration. Nevertheless, the Disability Rehabilitation Centre in Nineveh Province has been a safe refuge for over 20,000 disabled people in the city of Mosul and its outskirts.

The centre provides a range of services and treatments for its patients as it has specialists from a variety of fields. It is very well-equipped with X-rays, a laboratory and a dentistry ward. Of great importance are the physiotherapy treatments available to patients who have been inflicted with physical disabilities.

Nevertheless, there are a number of cases that the centre is unable to treat. Those patients are provided with a special identification card and are offered wheelchairs and crutches, as well as psychological support.

“We issue IDs to those suffering from paralysis, blindness, and eye and ear problems. We receive these patients and take their documents along with their photos and issue them with IDs. This only takes us 15 minutes. According to the ID, we register whether the patient is in need of a wheelchair, we take their phone number, and when we receive the wheelchairs we give them a call”, notes an employee at the centre.

Statistics from the Disability Rehabilitation Centre show that over a third of patients taken in have suffered injuries as a result of the ISIS occupation of Mosul, which ended with its liberation by the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) back in July 2017.

A number of other organisations have been treated patients who were wounded at the hands of ISIS. For instance, The international humanitarian non-governmental organisation Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has recently opened a medical rehabilitation centre at a hospital in Baghdad run by the Red Crescent. The centre provides medical and psychological assistance to those who lived under ISIS-held territories.